Frank Gardner: Key points from government's defence spending plan

Frank Gardner: Key points from government's defence spending planImage source, Ministry of DefenceImage caption, A Protector RG Mk1, a next generation remotely piloted aircraft used by the RAFByFrank GardnerSecurity correspondentPublished7 minutes agoThe government has published its long-delayed defence investment plan (DIP) that outlines how much money it will spend on the UK's armed forces.An additional £15bn will go on defence - a total of £270bn over the next four years - and will include spending on the nuclear deterrent and new combat aircraft.But the extra money is less than the £28bn reportedly sought by defence chiefs, and both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have criticised the plan as underfunded.Here are the key points included in the 81-page plan, and what they may mean.Largest increase in defence spending since the Cold War, government saysThe government has raised defence spending from £54bn per year when it took office in 2024, to £80bn by 2029 - a real-term increase of 27%,Ministers say that is the largest increase since the Cold War in the 1980s.Since John Healey resigned as defence secretary on 11 June over what he considered insufficient funding in the plan, his successor Dan Jarvis has secured a further £1.5bn.But this takes the total additional funds awarded to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to £15bn, while the gap between what's needed and what's actually funded reportedly stands at £28bn.£270bn earmarked over the next four yearsBut is it enough? This represents just 2.7% of GDP by 2030, well short of the 3% mandated by Nato.The US already spends 3.2%, Germany 3.7%, while Russia, which has put its economy onto a war footing, spends more than 7.5%.Seismic shift to smaller, cheaper, uncrewed and autonomous systemsIn a speech earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described it as a "huge, historic shift for our nation".It is certainly a dramatic transformation away from expensive big-ticket items...